Although the scientific evidence on global warming is clear, the implementation of effective climate protection measures has been stalling for decades, partly due to structural barriers within the political system. A "Chinese whispers" effect has often occurred between the perception of the climate crisis and the concrete implementation of climate action: Climate policy objectives have been reinterpreted, reframed or watered down time and again in the political process by short-term party politics and power plays. Sociology and political science explain this failure through the functional differentiation of society, conflicting ideological discourses and the tendency of democracies to prioritise short-term electoral gains over long-term investments in the future.
The Wuppertal Institut’s self-funded exploratory project "PoliS-K" systematically reviewed the state of research on the extent to which the causes of failing environmental policies lie in the structures of the political system, and investigated which reform approaches already exist. To this end, the project team consolidated the relevant knowledge at the Institute through internal surveys and interdisciplinary workshops and visualised it in a knowledge map. At the same time, through a systematic literature review to identify existing systemic limitations and reform options, such as citizens’ assemblies, future councils, constitutional objectives or random selection procedures.